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Just the facts

Wary approach is needed as debate over fracking escalates

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Thursday August 9, 2012 5:31 AM

A healthy dose of skepticism is appropriate as the debate builds over the merits of hydraulic
fracturing, aka fracking.

The debate between supporters and opponents of the drilling technique often seems driven more by
emotion and ideological bent than by the facts.

This technique — blasting water, sand and chemicals into shale formations deep underground to
free the oil and natural gas — has been around for decades. The newest development, and the reason
the public is now hearing so much about it, is companies’ ability to drill horizontally into
subterranean rock layers to extract resources that were inaccessible before.

People have reacted in the predictable ways. Some are excited about the promise of jobs; the
state still is suffering from the recession and desperately needs the Next Big Industry. And as
people have a natural distrust of change, especially anything that might have an effect on the land
in their backyards, some are calling for a halt.

When state Sen. Kris Jordan of Delaware told the Senate in June that, “state agencies have not
identified one single instance where groundwater has been damaged due to hydraulic fracking,” he
was technically correct. As
The (Cleveland)
Plain Dealer found, no Ohio agency has heard anything about harm to groundwater from the
actual act of pumping the water into the ground to break up the shale.

But Duke University researchers found groundwater problems most likely caused by poorly
constructed drilling wells. Methane levels were 17 times higher in wells for drinking water within
1 kilometer of fracking sites in New York and Pennsylvania than in those farther away. Apparently,
methane produced by the fracking process is distinguishable from naturally occurring methane, and
researchers found the former type in the drinking-water wells.

On the other side of the debate, environmental groups and Josh Fox, director of the
anti-fracking documentary
Gasland, stated in a letter to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo that breast-cancer rates have
spiked in the area of Texas where heavy drilling takes place. Researchers say that’s not true.

Misstatements such as this — when the truth inevitably emerges — tend to backfire on those
making the bogus claim.

Research hasn’t confirmed that radioactivity in drilling fluids could show up in drinking water,
but some opponents have spread that claim as the gospel truth.

Emotion can’t rule the day; the country needs trustworthy research. The U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency is studying fracking’s effects and is expected to issue findings late this year.
That probably won’t be the final word on it, but it will be a useful starting point.

Until some knowledge has been amassed, those confronted by claims from any side of the argument
should withhold judgment until they see facts backing up the claims.